The Big Picture - The 10 Best Movies of 2023 ... So Far

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

Sean and Amanda call up an all-star rotation of Ringer colleagues and contributors to share their favorite movies this year so far, from superhero movies to art house darlings and everything in between. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, Joanna Robinson, Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Rob Mahoney, Jessica Clemons, Adam Nayman Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. I'm Brian Curtis. And I'm David Shoemaker. We're the hosts of The Ringer's Press Box podcast. Twice a week, we have a free-flowing conversation where two old, old friends talk about media and sports and a little politics. Plus interviews with guests like John Krakauer

and Jamel Hill. Funny stuff like the overworked Twitter joke of the week. Join us every Monday and Friday on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I think that's right. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points.

Visit Superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the best movies of the year so far. I'm going to open plainly with you, Amanda. has this been a good year for movies? Medium. I think high highs and low lows. That's always the case at this point in the year. Does it feel more distinct this year? The lows feel lower. Okay. Particularly because you have really felt those lows publicly on this podcast with a lot of emotion.

It has stayed with me. Yeah, I think the highs have been high. And there's also the hope of highs to come, if that makes any sense. The back half of this year is loaded with things that we're looking forward to. And anticipation is half the fun. Even this month of July could offer a bounty of excitement. There have been a lot of very good movies this year. I do feel that the bottom of the barrel has gotten alarmingly bottom-barrelly. I actually, I was at a very exclusive club having

a fancy Hollywood meeting yesterday. And at that meeting with these very important people, hang tight, one of the people I was having lunch with said, Are you nervous to be here in the event that someone who you trashed on the pod is also having lunch here? Which is the first time someone ever asked me that. And I think it was a signal that perhaps I've gotten a little bit hot about the degradation of my favorite art form. I think that you've only trashed suits and brands. Okay. And that's okay with me.

No, because if they're artists and they're achieving art, then they are not coming under fire. I guess you trashed Adam Driver a little bit for no reason. No, I didn't. You did. That was sort of mean. And then who was the other person where you were like,

why isn't he, you know, being perfect on the movies? Who was it? Ryan Gosling. Chris Hemsworth. Oh, that's right. Ryan Gosling. I want more for both of them.

Right. Sure. We want more for everyone. But I think those are the only three people by name that you've trashed. So you're doing okay. I'm emotionally committed

to looking forward optimistically to the second half of this movie year. We have many guests on this episode. The most guests we've ever had on an episode? How many people did we have on the Criterion? More than this. 20, 30?

40 people? No, it wasn't 40. I think it was 20. I think it was 10. 10 or 12. 10 is probably the most we can accommodate. But we're going to have all of our friends, many people who you've heard on the show before, many people across the ring or podcast network. Who do you think will have the best recommendation? Don't look at the sheet. Don't look at the chart. Don't cheat.

Who will have the- Well, but I already did. It's too late. Okay. Who will be the best guest in your estimation? Okay. Well, I really like Rob Mahoney's pick. Okay. And then he has um hurt me

in the past on this podcast but i think in a past life in a past life but he has a unique power when it comes to his movie criticism so i'm looking forward to that um i'm looking forward to hearing Mallory make the case for her movie, um, which I enjoyed, but I'm also like, you know, we'll see. Also, we're never going to leave this studio. It'll be three hours. Uh, what about you? Well, I always like when Adam Naiman comes to town. Oh, sure.

I'm looking forward to Adam Naiman and of course, Van and many other friends, uh, from the Ringer Podcast Network. So let's just go to our first guest who is of course the one and many other friends from the Ringer Podcast Network. So let's just go to our first guest, who is, of course, the one and only Chris Ryan. Okay, our first guest on the Best of 2023 Movies Podcast is Chris Ryan. Chris, what is your favorite movie of 2023 so far? John Wick Chapter 4. Holy shit. Yeah, I don't know.

I can't believe we haven't talked about this yet. I saw it once on the big screen. I've seen it twice since then on my TV at home. I own this film digitally just because I like firing up certain sequences of it, which may be one of the fastest turnarounds from theater to actual functional rewatchable for me, where I'm just like, you know what I think I want to do?

Just watch Sacre Coeur. I want to see the steps, or I want to see Japan, or I want to see the Berlin nightclub. This is basically Chad Stahelski's musical. These scenes are not violent in some way. There's a way in which you can just talk about this movie as it's just choreography. Pure choreography. There's hardly a functional story. There's made-up rules

about the Continental. I don't care. I just watched Keanu and Donnie fucking get after it. It's so, so, so beautiful to look at. The two and a half hours, doesn't matter, went by in a flash. I mean, yeah, I think the first time through, it's a little long.

But my God, what an accomplishment. Keanu Reeves barely speaks in this film. Doesn't matter. It's also kind of a silent movie. Yeah. And also kind of a self-reflective musical. It's like a little bit of like an all that jazz. Yeah.

Leading all the way up to the conclusive final act of the movie. Um, Amanda and I both really loved it. I think it's my second favorite movie of the year. Actually. Um, I haven't,

I've only rewatched it once. So when you're firing it up, are you bouncing scene to scene? Yeah. So I'll, I, I skip ahead to, to Japan.

Um, I watched a little bit of like Kane getting like, you know, the, the sort of assignment or whatever, but I, I'll, I'll skip ahead to Japan. I watch a little bit of Kane getting this sort of assignment or whatever, but I'll skip ahead to Japan, skip ahead to Berlin, and then watch all the Paris stuff. You've been to Paris since seeing John Wick 4. I didn't see the steps. That's sad. I know. They're there.

They're very tall. Who's your favorite non- Ki-Adi person in this movie? Gosh, I'm trying to think. Can Donnie Yen get a supporting actor nomination for this movie? Can we start the campaign? I mean, it will never happen in a million years. But if you read about what he did, he basically improv'd and designed a lot of his own fight sequences

because he, of course, is a martial arts master in addition to being a really fun actor. And Stahelski, you could tell just in certain sequences, just let him cook. Just let him design moments where he's just doing, you know, hand-to-hand one-on-one fights. And he's brilliant. And also, like, all the probing stuff with the cane

is so, like, beautiful and dance-like. Right. The way he's, like... And then that, what is it? The kitchen scene where he sets... Is it the microwave timer? I haven't seen it in a while. But that stuff is amazing.

And it's just, like, been a while. So stuff is amazing. And it's just like been a while so first of all it's like you see a lot of action movies you just don't even remember any of the things that happen and then this is the opposite where you're just like

these are seared into my mind and then the other thing is is that like I think I love the fact that a movie that really kind of changed the parameters of gun violence on screen now

the gun violence is almost like psychedelic. Like it's not, like to me, the gun violence is completely secondary to the choreography of the action at this point.

And even they invent like the flamethrower gun or whatever. I don't, I guess I don't know whether they invented it. I think that actually exists, but I'm not really familiar with what it is. But that is so over the top as to be kind of, if not unrealistic. Well, it's also like, you know, the sport coat or the blazer that blocks bullets.

It's like kind of become now like from the first two were kind of like, oh, shit. You know, very close hand-to-hand combat feels bone crunching. This is something much more high level. But it's a big love letter to a lot of things that inspired Stahelski. It's a big David Lean sequence at the beginning of the film. You know, there's obviously a lot of Zaduichi the Blind Swordsman and Lone Wolf and Cub and all these gangster movies that he loves and Sergio Leone and all the stuff that he always talks about.

Plus, like that gun sequence that you're talking about that shoots fire, that's just an homage to video games. I mean, that's just an homage to video games. I mean, that's just a first-person shooter slash overhead kind of scrolling, an infinite scroll game. And it's beautiful. It's like the choreography is amazing. It's breathtaking. I agree with you that the violence has moved into a kind of abstract state.

Yeah, that's the best way to put it. I don't know. It's kind of hard to tangle with what that means. You know, the series itself stands on its own right it could very easily fall into a kind of like is this problematic

for our children kind of a zone but it feels like the movies have now gotten increasingly operatic and crazy yes that they're on

some other playing field but isn't that like the best case scenario for continuing to go back like if it's obviously an ATM machine for the studio, obviously like they're trying to build out the world. There's a TV show coming on Peacock. They're going to make an Anna De Armas movie.

Like they're just going to keep making these. They're going to keep making John wicks. But if you're going to do it, if you've got a filmmakers, like if I'm going to do these, I want to really challenge myself to think of a different way to shoot this character, a different way to tell this story,

go to different places. And the idea that for something that's so frenetic and so quick cutting and so amazing in the first few, and now he's like, I'm going to do these long sequences of the steps where it's actually you're going to experience the frustration of this guy falling down, going up and falling back down. I don't know. There's something very primal and elemental about the filmmaking in this i just really responded to it's a great recommendation cr thank you sure

john kane they gave you my name yeah i'm sorry me too alright we're here with Van Lathan Van what's the best movie of 2023 so far for you

alright it comes down to two films I'm only gonna name one though Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 Amanda's laughing at you I stand with you Van I'm not laughing at you i'm laughing that i'm

sitting here doing this again um which is different and i honor you and your feelings and your time did you see the movie i saw the movie you didn't like it i i have to be honest with you, Van. I loathed it. I really... How? And here's the thing. Do you hate animals? No. No, and that's why I was mad. Why did I have to watch animal torture porn?

Also, you sidelined the best fucking character in your whole movie, and you put him in weird little animal, you know, torture prison. Amanda, Amanda, Van is our guest. Sorry. So look, my only other choice was going to be a movie that none of you guys watched.

You didn't see it. Maybe called Sharper. Did you see that? Of course I saw Sharper. I've seen everything. Oh, that's true. Sharper was solid. I like Sharper.

Well, Sharper would have been quite a pick. Yeah, I like Sharper. Do you want to speak on Sharper very quickly? Because I don't think anybody else is going to pick it. It's not bad though.

Okay, so this is what I'll say about Sharper. Do you want to speak on Sharper very quickly? Because I don't think anybody else is going to pick it. It's not bad, though. Okay, so this is what I'll say about Sharper. I, in the hands of a capable auteur, it's almost impossible to make a bad con man movie. I love confidence scheme movies. Same. I can't think of very many that I don't dig. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Matchstick Man. I can't think of very many con i don't dig dirty rotten scoundrels matchstick man i can't think of very many con men movies that i don't dig even oceans 11 for large portions of it is a con man

movie as much as it is a heist movie which they say there's multiple cons running at the same time this one is a good one it's not very robust okay it's a little lean which is okay because uh the performances are great allow It'll allow the performances to stand out. The two younger leads, I don't really even know their names. Like, I've seen these kids and other stuff.

One of them is Justice Smith, I think, right? Yeah. Justice Smith, who was in Detective Pikachu and was just in the Dungeons & Dragons movie. A love story

mixed with a confidence game mixed with interracial stuff. Like, just a good movie. A good, solid movie. You start watching it on Apple Plus

and then you're like, huh, 15 minutes in, this was a good decision. You pat yourself on the back. Alright, I want to pat yourself on the back type films.

Back to Guards of the Galaxy 3. I'm really sorry. This is your time. Wait, let me just say about Sharper. One, I think you should watch it. I think it's like a B or a B minus.

I don't think it's a great movie, but it does, it is a movie that we complain they don't make anymore yes that's a fact like when we talk about the fact see how it's stuttered that's when you know i'm excited but when we talk about the fact that they don't just make movies with these contained stories anymore that are cool little slices of life that's a movie that they don't make anymore with an oscar winner with john lithgow this is one that you put in a roundup i didn't make anymore with an Oscar winner with John Lithgow John Lithgow this is one that you put in a roundup

I didn't get to it was mad on the podcast and then I had to watch something else and I never got to it again and now I'm mad at myself again that's on me it's definitely better

than 70% of the movies I've asked you to watch so I apologize it's just you know because I haven't gotten to it but it sounds great good Salvan

liked it but Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is one of the best third movies in any trilogy I've ever seen it wraps up all the stories pretty well uh I'll it's the movie I won't watch again because I do love animals too much and I was I was in the theater people were laughing at me in the screening I'm in the theater. People were laughing at me in the screening. I'm in the screening and stuff is happening and I'm going, oh my God. And I'm weeping. It's like,

I got a dog that I literally fall asleep with nightly. The dog comes in, he goes, it's time to go to sleep, Dad. He jumps up there,

we fall asleep together. And then he gets too hot and he gets up and he goes on the couch. What's your dog's name? Bozeman. Oh, I knew this. Named after the late

great Chadwick. But I just thought the movie, obviously, it's a guy who had a little bit, he had a lot of freedom. Not a little bit of freedom, but a lot of freedom, so he could do whatever he wanted to. And to see him unshackled like that

and really tell his story and finish it off, I thought it was a great experience. So I really loved that movie. Thus far, that's the most fun I've had watching the movie this year. Even though you were crying the whole time and you'll never watch it again

it was upsetting I cried a lot man I cried at the end I cried did you cry when Florence and the Machine played just like Sean did see

I liked it like I cried like I cried when when Rocket touched his head and he went hurts

that was sad I was like yo what is going sad. I was like, yo, what is going on? Have a heart, Amanda Dobbins. I did. That was really upsetting. And I was mad because I didn't want to be watching it. You're like Quentin Tarantino. You don't want to see animal death on screen.

I really don't. Or baby death. Or babies in peril. I had tried to think when I just saw that. I've never seen an animal get. Oh, no. Horses. Horses have gotten the shaft in some Quentin Tarantino movies, haven't they?

No. I don't think so. Django, a horse didn't get it? This is not something he does. He doesn't do the thing where the horse gets. You got an ear, he'll cut that shit off. But a horse, no. Yeah.

You guys love him. He's coming out with more movies. We love him. You don't love him? I love him. I know your whole situation with this. You're so biased. That's another podcast.

Van, thank you so much. No problem. We were gone for quite a while. But no matter what happens next, the galaxy still needs its guardians hey our pal joanna robinson is here to talk about maybe not exactly her number one with a bullet favorite movie of the year there was some negotiation but you steward of great art expert podcaster you knew how to pivot so you've chosen a wonderful film to recommend today. What's your favorite movie of 2023?

Yeah, favorite with an asterisk in my lifelong feud with Rob Mahoney will continue. Okay. He took it from me too, but I really like this pick. I wanted to spend some time talking to you all about Rain Allen Miller's Rye Lane, which was a hit out of sundance and is currently available on hulu and is a brisk 82 minutes so what uh what just like why why would you say no why could you possibly turn it down this is um this is a lovely walk and talk uh rom-com and amanda and i i don't know about you sean but amanda and i are huge fans

of the rom-com genre there's been so don't know about you Sean but Amanda and I are huge fans of the rom-com genre there's been so much discussion about what are you doing you're turning on the two of this bullshit what is this listen because everyone

can pick up on your fake this is bullshit you know I was like I was like the nice guy in college who was like

I would love to watch When Harry Met Sally and somehow I have been cast even by Joanna who is actually nice to me god damn did you just not all men rom-coms I did I did all the stories I have been cast even by Joanna who is actually nice to me. God damn. This is not all men rom-coms.

I did. I did. All this work for nothing. A walk and talk rom-com. There's been a lot of discussion in the last I don't know

10, 20 years if you want about like the the viability the death of the rom-com and there was a lot of hyper praise out of Sundance for this film being like the rebirth of the rom-com and And there was a lot of hyper praise out of Sundance for this film being like the rebirth of the rom-com. And I'm not ready to call it that. Like, I don't think that that's

what it's doing because the rom-com-ness of it is actually like quite conventional. But what is exciting is Ray and Alan Miller as a filmmaker and the style of this film, which accomplishes a couple of things at once. There's first of all, there's the, you know, there's, it is a walk and talk in,

in the vein of, you know, the before films for sure. But what it has, those donuts, like a lot of cutaways to flashbacks or fantasy sequences. And it is very evocative of Edgar Wright, Edgar Wright in his films,

but more so like in the show space that he did when he first started out or Peep Show, another great British television series whose creator Jesse Armstrong went on to make Succession, never heard of it. And so I think what this really is, is a calling card for Rayne Allen Miller for future projects that I'm really excited to see. Like, I feel like this is a filmmaker we are going to be enjoying as she matures on and on and on and you're going to want to be like yeah but did you see have you seen Rylane though? Like are you a real Ray Allen Miller

fan? This is the Nirvana's bleach of her oncoming rom-com dominance I love it. Exactly and like the visual palette like the color palette to me read very like La La Land, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, like borderline musical. Like if this were a musical, you wouldn't be surprised. There's just something like candy colored about it in a really pleasing

way. And then the location, which a lot of people have called out in this, which is this is South London. We're in Peckham. We're in Brixton. We're on the South Bank. When you do a before film, if you're Richard Linklater and you do a before film and you're walking around Vienna or you're walking lot of time in is that she is just like excavated or curated just incredibly beautiful tableaus and images from this very specific location. And so it is so cliche to say like, well, it's like New York is another character in this movie. You know, like that's you want to vomit when someone says that but like this really is such a specific and unexplored location in a film that I just felt really anchored in in the place in a way that I loved and then uh David Johnson who's an actor who I love out of um industry and uh Vivian Opara are like give great performances that you know

kept me along for the ride. So I don't think the writing is going to blow you away. I don't think you're going to be surprised by any twists and turns of the plot. But I think you will have just a very pleasurable 82-minute cinematic experience watching it. Yeah, it's fun. It's got a lot of style. I was quite heartened to see that Ray Allen Miller's influences are Steve Mc steve mcqueen and interestingly roy anderson the great swedish filmmaker who actually ari aster frequently recommends who is this very kind of painterly absurdist colorful um but also um like a bit frozen in time is a bit a bit how his his

films look and there is something um canvas-like about this movie. You know, she's really gifted with creating like a landscape. And so on the one hand, I think it's great that she's using the rom-com structure to do it, but it also suggests a filmmaker with like bigger ambitions visually too. So I'm curious to see what she does. Yeah, as the rom-com steward on this podcast, at least, Jo, thank you for joining us. I mean, it is also heartening that she chooses to use the rom-com as a genre because so much of the straight-to-streaming rom-coms right now just look like absolute trash.

Dog shit. I mean, just, you know, there's no art in making the visual image, but there's also no sense of place or personality, which is another reason. You know, Joe, I know South London as a character is a cliched thing to say, but this feels personal and feels like two people. It also just is a great trend. There have been a lot of great rom-coms as TV shows set in London in the last five years. I'm thinking of the Sharon Horgan oeuvre and Starstruck, of course, by Rose Mattafeo. And Juliette Lippman and I have talked a lot about all of those, enjoyed them and been like, okay, but also you guys could just make these as movies. So thank you,

Rayna Allen Miller, for making this as a movie. We love movies. The praising, the over-praising, I think, of something like Netflix set it up, which is like a lot of people say is like, oh, that saved the world. And I was like, that was fine. It was a very elevated Hallmark movie with some very delightful performances in it. But like something like Starstruck, I would say Rosamund Feo's Starstruck is my favorite rom-com of the last like decade. Absolutely. And this is the closest we've gotten to it in cinematic form. So I think that's a big reason why I loved it.

Yeah. Jo, thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Lovely to see you. Do you want to send one more shot Rob Mahoney's way? I mean, he's got a lot coming for him, you know? I mean, I think the two of us together. Sure.

I think Amanda could just like easily ruin his life. So that's the plan for the rest of the year. How exciting. What an incredible energy to bring, ruining people's lives. Joanna Robinson, thank you. Thanks for having me. How did you guys meet? Oh, it's a pretty cute story.

Do you want to tell it, Bob? No, you go for it, Bob. You guys heard of nothing but a G thing? It's this fire hip-hop karaoke night. Me and my girls were there a few nights back. We're joined by the legend himself, Adam Naiman. Hello, Adam. There was a tweet the other day.

Someone was like, they heard my name come on the big picture, and they just turned it off. So we shouldn't use your name to advertise this episode is what you're saying. I think it should be like a scream voice changer. Hello, Sean and Amanda. Yeah. Or a bust out my long practice Chris Ryan impression.

I'm ready for that whenever you are. Yeah, no, not on this episode. The Wayne Jenkins is on the other foot today. Adam, we're talking about the best movies of 2023. Right. You could have chosen any film that was released in this calendar year so far.

Did Adam get the first pick? Well, the film that he picked had not been claimed by anyone when he claimed it, which I thought was interesting. And you've chosen Fast X, so thank you for doing that. Yeah.

You know, the series just keeps getting better. You know, it keeps getting better. I think the more they double down on family. Sure, yeah. I'm just really sucked in every time.

What did you actually choose, Adam? I chose a movie that could have just as easily been the best movie of last year had it been released. And when we're talking a little bit about why it wasn't released is curious, which is Kelly Reichardt showing up. Now, we are all, I think, in this room, you know, relatively fond of Kelly Reichardt. How can we not be? And when First Cow was released weirdly after its festival bow in the COVID year, that wasn't necessarily a good call, but it was that no one had anything else to watch. So it kind of did well on streaming and got a lot of press because there's nothing else to write about i don't understand why showing up is out now this premiered at can last year and then showed at the new york film festival and got great reviews i

mean some of the best reviews she's ever gotten we'll talk about the actual movie in a second and then they held it for this spring and all the momentum of 10 best lists and, you know, possible awards voting, which, you know, would be a nice new wrinkle in Kelly's career. Cause she hasn't really gotten that much sort of like, you know, official acclaim in the form of awards and stuff. I just felt weirdly, like it kind of got dumped now, which doesn't change the quality of the movie and the reviews aren't any worse. I mean, if people haven't heard of the movie and you look it up on Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes, I mean, there's an awful lot of best movie of the year rhetoric around it,

but that's hard to do when you get released in June or May to keep that up until December with recency bias. I doubt I will see a movie I like more this year. And I would have had it at number one last year if I'd been allowed. So we talked about it a bit on the show when it was released. I had a chance to talk to Kelly and Michelle Williams. I'll just share my theory on this is that a little movie called The Fablemans may have stood in the way of this movie getting a late 2022 release. Nevertheless, I think Amanda and I are pretty much with you that this is definitely one of the three or four best movies of the year.

We both loved it. Why don't you like set the stage for what it is and what you dug about it? Sure. I mean, this is a film that is set, you know, in the most exciting place in the world, which is, you know, like an arts campus in Oregon. It's actually shot on a real now kind of posthumous campus. The art school that it was shot at has since closed right when when you know since the movie was was kind of being conceived and shot and it's about an artist played by michelle williams who's like kind of associated with the faculty but it's like a weird make work job because her mom is kind of in charge and

she's sort of a student but she's so long tenured there as a student that she's almost kind of like an instructor and staff and kind of like, you know, homecoming queen. Like it's that idea like being a really adult kind of student. And everybody's kind of a student and they're all kind of caught between studenthood and adulthood and like making art for the love of it and trying to have it be some kind of career in business. And there's other people who viewers would recognize wandering around the campus. There's Hong Chow who continues her streak of never being anything but great in everything. And Andre 3000 and,

you know, other, other sort of hip, cool character actors. And what it's essentially about plot wise is just like how annoying cats are, you know, like she, she,

she has an annoying cat, Michelle Williams, that hurts this pigeon, and then she kind of like feels responsible for the pigeon, and that becomes sort of like the connective device of the movie, like the care of this pigeon juxtaposed against her sculpture making. But at the risk of sounding like pretentious, which this movie is not, it's about art. You know, it's about the reasons that people

make it the physical process of doing it how much of it involves a community how much of it is alone a lonely sort of venture and the community part is what's so funny about it because it it's in this perfectly realized little microcosm of like weekly wine and cheese receptions and everyone's making flyers and everyone's being supportive and secretly super judgmental and super competitive, but everybody's little slice of attention. And it's just a completely fully realized inhabited miniature little classic. You know,

I mean, this is a filmmaker who's tried her hand in genre. She's made a credible Western. She's made a pretty good thriller. She's done a kind of, um, you know, like really sort of contemporary intersecting triptych movie with,

with certain women. I mean, she simply doesn't miss, I don't think she's made a bad movie. And I can't say that about another American director who's been working since the nineties, even the big ones who we love on this show, you know, have had movies that have dipped below a certain quality control line. She has not.

I feel like you clicked with this one more than some of her other work, too. Is that fair to say? This is certainly my favorite Kelly Reichardt film. And Adam, it's what you said, that it is quite literally about art in a way that makes it like a process movie. And it's not pretentious. It's fascinating. And you get to watch someone who is incredibly gifted make a film about the process of making stuff and how physical that can be and how much can get in the way of it and like what a drag it can be in the logistics but

also how that is a necessary part of creativity and and for me all of the mundane aspects of it like unlocked the emotional you know and um the kind of source of inspiration in a way that like a more highfalutin movie would have been very off-putting so i thought it was really exhilarating sean and i talked about the the sculptures are that um are michelle williams characters makes are done by a ceramicist named cynthia lottie and they're also it's just the way that those are used in the movie um is just very beautiful so i loved it oh yeah i know the the sculptures which are these sort of Giacometti, like very spindly long limbs. They look very breakable,

which is very nerve wracking the entire time. You know, I know that Kelly was inspired by a Canadian artist by Emily Carr was one of the sources of inspiration. It's funny. Sean mentions the Fablemans because it has a couple of points to cross over with the Fablemans, not only Michelle Williams, but also judd hirsch and that idea of a kind of artistic family and the pressures

within that where instead of williams being the source of inspiration like she is in the fablemans maybe you know this ethereal mom figure i mean here she's like it's not like she's trying to live up to some celebrity example it's sort of like i don't know whether she wants to surpass the degree to which her parents intersect with the arts or she just approaches it differently but she's so exasperated and just a word about michelle williams like not like she lacks praise and she's been oscar nominated but her collaborations with reichardt are miraculous like i don't know of a better director actress pair i'm not even just talking about female directors i mean just a better director actress pair American movies. And this is such a funny performance because of how

ornery she is. She's ornery, tired, frustrated. There are shots of her just eating pasta salad that she's brought from home while staring into the middle distance at work. It's just howling. It's a dry kind of humor, but she's really funny. And in a just world, it's the sort of performance that she'd get awards hype for as much as for the kind of overwrought stuff in The Fableman. It's a movie that I like, by the way, but no question which one she's better in for me. The thing I like about it, among many other things, is that it's probably the clearest evocation I've ever seen of anyone who's worked in a creative field before and this wild clash of ego and insecurity that is at play,

where she knows she's talented. She's incredibly well-educated in the art form that she's working in. But all of these little choices, some that are made by her and her lifestyle and some that are made by other people, thinking specifically of when one of her ceramics is burned in the kiln by Andre 3000's character and her discontent over this is like such a pure expression of when the person you work with is just like kind of fuck something up and you're like god damn it if only you could have just done your job we could have had something good here and yeah that is that is not a shot at you or bobby by the way uh i'm thinking of more external situations in my life but nevertheless i thought that that was such a specific and beautiful rendering of something that everyone who has ever been close to something like this really understands and for and and for

listeners they should know that like accidentally burned by andre 3000 in a kiln is about as dramatic as this movie gets. Sure, yes. Which is, I think, why it's so wonderful, because it doesn't artificially inflate stakes, and it also doesn't punch down and make fun of art making. It's like, when you're in something, it's your project. And it's okay that that ends up becoming your whole world, even though it's a small world. And the other thing I just want to say that I love, love, love about it is in the background of almost any shot, any scene, you see all these students. Some are like roughly the Williams character's age.

A lot are younger, right? They're just making stuff. Yeah. Physically, palpably making stuff. And you can imagine a version of this movie that would make fun of what they were making or use it more as a kind of psych gag or as a running joke. They are funny because we don't see them in their completed form.

And we do kind of wonder like what the hell they are, but they're so beautiful and intimate and detailed. And you can see people working on stuff. And there's something quite, just the fact that it's such a tactile movie of people doing things physically and it's not computer pixel related art. I know that seems like a dumb read of it.

And I know that that's not necessarily the intention. But there's something like very, very wholesome and very sort of genuinely inspired about all the images of artistry and art making in this movie. It's nothing. It's something that culture doesn't focus on enough or it makes fun of. You know? It's a great pick, Adam. Yeah. I'm glad. I i just want to make sure so the flash is number two for you yeah you know i thought that the flash really uh drew a bead on this very interesting idea of multiverses that i haven't examined that i haven't examined before and i think it really speaks to that studio savvy that

they released that one and not batgirl no no chance that the one by Pretty Good Filmmakers might have been good because I think we're all going to live with The Flash for a long time and think about it and study it and watch it over and over and over again. Adam, thank you for entering the Speed Force today. We appreciate your service. Yeah, see you later, guys. I can't figure out what class this is, but I really want to join it. Thinking and movement.

Ah, you're Lizzie, right? You made that nice flyer. I haven't gotten to read the article yet, but I made the flyer. In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no. Turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really?

Yeah. There's the sausage, bacon, and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing. Bet they taste amazing, too. Wish I had a mouth. Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax at participating McDonald's restaurants.

Okay, Mallory Rubin is here. We're here to talk about your favorite movie of 2023 so far. Is this your honest favorite movie or would you have taken something else if you could really do it? I think it depends on what we mean by favorite because if you had said what was the movie that you thought was the best so far, I would have picked Spider-Verse, which is the best movie that I have seen this year. However, I am perfectly content, dare I say thrilled, to make the case that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the most satisfying movie-going experience I have enjoyed this year. Why? Because, as we discussed very recently, right here on this podcast where you two screamed at each other for an astonishing span of time once again about the Holy Grail.

One, Harrison Ford is one of the most beloved, cherished, important, and good-looking movie figures in our shared history. I adore him. He's very important to me. And two, relatedly, Indiana Jones as a character, Indiana Jones as a movie franchise, seminal, central to our lives. And to get an installment like this that feels like a proper and fitting send-off for Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, as Henry Jones Jr. For the franchise, maybe full stop, for this version of the franchise featuring Indy is something that not only I'm really grateful we got, but that felt important coming off of Crystal Skull, a movie that we have all revisited and have a slightly higher opinion of than we did back in 2008, but would not have been the way I wanted the indie journey to end.

And so we not only got a great adventure, we not only got to have fun with our friends watching Harrison Ford at the fucking movies, we got a kind of emotionally impactful and a surprising way farewell to a figure who is essential in our shared movie-going experience. What can top that this year? If we look at July 1st as the cutoff,

this movie gets in just under the bar for the first half of the year. Just do this thought exercise with me. When we get to Amanda's end of 2023 and you've compiled your list of the 800 films that you've seen, where would you think Dial of Destiny will sit?

Mal makes a convincing case for the satisfying nature of it. And it's certainly, to me, the best Blackbuster I've seen this year or the most satisfying. I do understand and saw firsthand like the artistic achievements of spider verse but i am not versed in that character in the same way that

i'm versed in indiana jones and or harrison ford again to mallory's point so yeah to me it's the most big budget fun that i've had at the movies up until July 1st. But we have some other things coming, even in a big ticket sense. Didn't answer my question. Where will it sit in the ranking of your top 800 films of the year? Maybe top 25? Okay. Top 20? I don't know. It's a stacked back half of the year. It is. It is. I'm not judging you. Where do you think it will land for you? I have no idea. And frankly, with respect for think it will land for you? I have no idea and frankly, with respect for the question

and love for you, I don't give a shit because right now, Incredible. Right now, This has been a violent recording session. I am

We should do this more often. Sincerely thankful that I got to enjoy this movie, I got to feel good about where the franchise stopped, and I had an excuse to revisit every prior indie installment, which is like one of the great joys that you can experience as a fan of movies. It really is.

And so anything that gives us the impetus to spend time with Harrison Ford's filmography, with the indie franchise, it's like, what a win. What a win for us as movie fans. That's really true. Prepping for Harrison Ford a week or two weeks has been the most fun that I've had prepping for podcasts in many years. Maybe that's a lesson that Hollywood should take in their pursuit of franchise storytelling is to only continue to make franchise movies whose previous editions we want to spend more time with as opposed to all of the movies that have ever existed before being up for grabs in terms of

franchise expansion. Is this your pitch for Regarding Henry 2? We did pitch Regarding Sean earlier this week on the show and we're in development

on that. Chris is going to learn about file luxury. It's very exciting. Mallory, thank you so much. Thanks guys. You're the best.

Water displacement. Get in the pool! What? Help me open the door! Well, they didn't You're the best. Water displacement. Get in the pool! What? Help me open the door! Well, they didn't get out the doors. Get in the pool! Okay, I'm getting in the pool. Help me!

Okay, Charles Holmes is here. Charles, we're talking about the best movies of 2023. You've seen them all. You've seen 700 films this year, and you've decided that Creed III is your pick. Why? Beat out past lives narrowly it was it was a narrow okay yeah you are one of like nine people in this pod that wanted to pick past lives but unfortunately you got you got blocked out by your boy rob mahoney hey here's the thing i want to talk about creed three because any excuse i have to talk about anime uh on the Pic, I'm going to take it.

And this is for the boys. Creed 3 was amazing. My brother and I have a time on our tradition. I got broken up with once. And he took me to the original Creed to make me feel better. Oh, that's nice. Are you crying during Creed? I'm like, man, the movie just understands me.

So now every single Creed movie, we're like, let's go, man. Let's be boys with our feelings, seeing other boys beat the shit out of each other. I love Creed 3. Tell us about the anime. I'm ready. I have an open heart. Okay, so here's the thing. The history of anime in American Hollywood is not great.

Okay? Especially in a live adaptation context. But I think what Michael B. Jordan gets, a true weeb at heart, is that you don't want to make a cartoon into live action. You want to take what makes anime so beautiful which is the angles that they're using the way the motion is happening the fast the slow what he does in this movie is like do you guys remember in the beginning where they zero in on his eye right and he's like he's about to power up that is from a a very popular anime called naruto

sharingan sasuke don't need to know anything about that but what he does in that moment is that for people of a certain generation if you are 35 and below seeing that type of shot signal something to your brain because that happens in so many anime and i think that that is what makes kind of creed 3 an achievement which is like he is not making an anime movie he is making a movie in the style of like the matrix uh which is inspired by anime but still does live action well so do you think the film is only elevated to people who get that. Like, we liked it. I liked it. I liked it.

You liked it as well. Yeah. Great performances, a great continuation of the Rocky and Creed franchises. Is it like, does it go from a three-star movie to a four-star movie just because of its references? Because I ask this in a kind of self-knowing way because I'm the kind of person who likes to be like, I know what movie you were referencing when I watch movies and then somehow feel better about the movie I've just watched. But I do,

I've said before, that is a low form of criticism. So maybe is there, is there anything beyond, oh, that shot reminds me of this shot from this other thing that makes it stand out to you? So I don't think that it makes

the movie inherently, like this is like a perfect out of five stars, like a 3. five movie for me. It doesn't it's not a five just because another black person watched Dragon Ball Z. Like we're not a special breed at this point. But I think what it actually does is it at this point in the rocky journey. The fights are almost beside the point for me sometimes because I'm like, what are you going to show me in a boxing movie

that I have not seen a thousand times in any other boxing movie? And what I think Creed III does is I'm like, it's fun and it's dumb and it's corny. And even when the anime references are like, me pointing out the screen would be like, dog, you could have cut this one. I still enjoy the fact

that he's having fun with it which i think a lot of boxing movies and a lot of just action set pieces right now do not have that sour yeah yeah the mcuification of action scenes and like fights in general have not been great for uh hollywood movies and i think i just enjoyed this movie so much because i'm like this is a guy doing something weird he's like he loves this thing he's doing it it's weird and i can tell he loves it can i ask you a question about the anime references now that you've of course you know you've you are not staking the entire movie on them or your life on them but like what what is the level of these references is, are they like extremely mainstream anime?

Are they like Captain Obvious or is there a breadth of the references? Is it like, did some, did he make a movie about how much he likes like Casablanca or, you know, like some sort of like thirties deep cut? Oh, no,

no, no, no. This is baby's first anime okay in terms of like this dragon ball z naruto one piece the type of stuff where i got in trouble for this on the other podcast i host the midnight boys i'm like if you are below the age of 30 naruto naruto and goku mean more to you than superman so it is just like, and it is very, very easy for you to go on Netflix. Can I just, Bobby was just like nodding solemnly to himself in the studio. Bobby, could you expand on that?

Expand on why I was nodding? Yes. Just like Naruto and Dragon Ball Z, like they were like video games that I played. Like I didn't have any relationship to Superman, like Charles is saying. I didn't really care about them. I wasn't like

a huge anime guy. There was the anime people who made their whole personality for like eight straight years. Charles, I don't know if you're one of those people. Charles, do you identify as an anime people? Alright, I want to have a girlfriend at one point in my high school existence so I realize there's something

about me and what I love that I need to bury deep, deep, deep down. Yes. If I ever want to. Speak louder. Yes. But here's the thing. Now I do have a girlfriend and she'll watch me.

She'll see me watching anime and she'll be like, hey, why are there so many big titty anime girls on the screen? I'm just like, hey, different culture. Don't worry about it. Let's just move on. That's a beautiful story about aging and the possibility of life. Yeah, and about hiding who you really are from the people you try to trick into staying with you forever. That's literally what all of us did.

Every single person in front of a microphone right now. And here we all are. I was like, it's going to be 162 Mets games a year and you're going to have to deal with it. Let me ask you quickly about the Dodger Stadium fight because that's obviously the big set piece. That is somewhat,

for someone like me who is not as familiar with anime, when I watched it, I had a hard time with it. I understood that it was a bold choice in terms of the storytelling, but I didn't love watching it. I understood that it was a bold choice in terms of the storytelling, but I didn't love watching it. And I thought it was quite

an over-literalized metaphor. But I know that a lot of anime fans felt a lot more excited by that sequence. What did you make of that final kind of conclusive fight in the film? So I understood

the reference. And to your point, I was just like, this is getting corny. What you have to understand about like shounen anime, especially, is that it's not like superman and batman it is little boys fighting against other little boys and the thing that will win them the day is friendship like that is like a part of the genre like two men fighting each other and the fight being a battle of the genre, like two men fighting each other

and the fight being a battle of wills, like you were my friend, but you don't want to be my friend anymore, is baked into the genre in the same way that every single Batman movie, you have to see his parents get killed. So it's supposed to be corny. And I don't think it works

for like a general American audience because we are very, very jaded and we're not used to friendship in our media. Ironic that I struggled with that since that is essentially every episode of this podcast. You were my friend

and you didn't want to be my friend anymore. So that's, maybe I'll revisit the film with that in mind. I just want to ask Amanda a quick question. Yes. You are are a mother correct I am a mother of a son mother of a son if you had to pick your poison would you rather your son be an anime boy or an MCU incredible

incredible question wow a thousand yard stare in the studio. No, I'm thinking through it. I'm thinking through it. I sadly know more about the MCU just through like exposure, you know, and the responsibilities of my job. I don't know very much about anime, which is on me. A lack of curiosity there. It seems like there's more possibility for, you know, creativity and something in anime. To me, at least. Also, you were telling, as you were telling the story,

this is about friendship and two little boys meeting, being friends and working through their friendship. And I was like, that's beautiful. I hope Nox has friends. Like my mom thing, like did buzz off in my head as you were talking about it. being friends and working through their friendship. And I was like, that's beautiful. I hope Knox has friends. Like my mom thing did buzz off in my head as you were talking about it. I was like, it's important for little boys to have friends. So I guess anime is my answer.

The parental fear of your children not having friends is deep and scarring. Oh, yeah. Because they also, they do this thing early on. Like they don't really have language yet. It's not their fault. But when you introduce children to each other around like one, two, three, they just, it's called parallel play. And they don't interact.

And they like know who the other person is. And they like are playing with the same toys, but they just don't talk to each other or look at each other. And you're like, oh no, is my child going to be lonely forever? And it's not, it's all children do it, but we just want our kids to connect, you know? So you're afraid that it, so you're telling me when I'm a father,

I'm going to be afraid that my kid might be a dud. Oh yeah. Like they have bad vibes. Like I don't want a bad vibe. Of course. Yeah. This is an intrinsic in the parental experience. And, yeah. Like they have bad vibes. Like I don't want a bad vibe. Of course. Yeah. This is intrinsic in the parental experience.

And you just want to protect them and bring them the good vibes and surround them with people who will also bring good vibes. But then you're like, why? Both of your children are best friends now.

They seem like they love each other. They do. But only in parallel universes. They are beside one another with great frequency. And they just kind of like stare past each other. But when they're at home

in their respective homes, like they talk about the other person. That's exactly right. It's kind of the opposite of the poetry of the fights in Creed 3, honestly. Where there's sort of like

these two bodies working in motion. This is, this is the other side of that. Yeah. So anyway. When the parallel play.

Parallel play. It's So anyway. When the parallel play. Parallel play. It's a real thing. Disintegrates. It's going to be a momentous occasion. I want y'all to talk about it on the big pic. Parallel play. That's kind of a Midnight Boys vibe. Well, it sounds like you need to produce their friendship more.

You know, it's a lot of the same skills. Wow. The two hoes. Wag's trying to get in on this parenting shit. You need to stop talking at each other and talk to each other. That's the producer slash camp counselor Bobby coming into play. Before we get off Creed III, can I ask you, should you bring Michael B. Jordan to the cool guys club for jam session?

Is he cool? Oh, interesting. Because he's under the age that we had set on that pod. Does this disqualify him because of his anime interest? Charles is waiting with bated breath over there. Oh, I know exactly why he can't be. Why can't he be in the... Go ahead. I'd love to hear from, you know,

new members of the Cool Men Committee. So, in my opinion, have y'all seen the meme of Michael B. Jordan crying courtside, which many people believe was when he got broken up with by Lori Harvey, Steve Harvey's stepdaughter.

So there's, he was crying IRL at a- Teary-eyed, teary-eyed. Okay. It was definitely, Bobby, if you can bring it up maybe so they can get a visual representation of this. It's become a meme now. Is she there or did he receive a text message? We don't know.

Okay. This was post-breakup. This is some of the most relatable shit ever, though. Getting dumped by Lori Harvey is very worthy of tears. But crying courtside, no matter how in touch with your emotions you are,

is not cool. This is wrong. The new masculinity tells us otherwise. It's sad boy. He's in the sad boy club. You can be a cool sad boy, but you can't be a sad boy,

and that's also cool i'm frankly stunned to hear you say this i i agree with charles you can be cool no absolutely not that's performative that's slanderous come on michael b is way cooler michael b is so sincere i'm i'm frankly i'm hurt by both of you he's so handsome he's so handsome the new masculinity is really handsome and cool and accepted all right i feel like i was at the forefront of that shit frankly I'm hurt by both of you he's so handsome he's so handsome the new masculinity is fucking real and cool and accepted alright

I feel like I was at the forefront of that shit like 15 years ago of the new masculinity these artists need to get their feelings into their work

you've invented new masculinity no is what you're saying well maybe to be there I was on Wikipedia after I watched

The Idol last night I was on House of Moons Wikipedia and your boy Sean Fennessey's name was in the criticism.

He's been a sad boy. He's been on the forefront. I've been writing about these people for years. Can I tell you guys though that like one of everybody's takes about I liked The Weeknd better when he sang about date rape and wouldn't leave his cave in Canada is like actually not a cool look.

Just so you, because I was there too. I remember when you were doing the sad boy criticism and even then, the weekend was a weirdo who didn't go outside. Okay.

Charles and I are aligned on this issue. I do not stand with Chris Ryan. I regret asking the question, Charles. I'm sorry. There's a lot of parallel play going on here. I'm so sorry, guys. I messed up the vibe. Charles, of parallel play going on here. I'm so sorry, guys. I messed up the vibe. Charles, thank you so much.

This was wonderful. Thank y'all. You see that man right there? Do you remember him? You got to block out everything and be in the moment. Not the past. Not the future.

Right now. Okay, Rob Mahoney is here. He of the NBA Group Chat podcast, among many other pods here across the Ringer Podcast Network. He of the thieving of films from Amanda Dobbins in movie drafts. He of the owner

of the most requested movie in this episode, The Best Movies of 2023. And we granted it to you, Rob. So what is your favorite movie of 2023? Past Lives with a bullet. But how many people did I have to fend off to claim this title? Essentially every other person on the podcast, including me, Rob Mahoney. We meet again. We do meet again. Hello, Amanda. Look, you're both been very gracious to grant me this.

This time we're joined in appreciation for one of the best films of the year. But why did you pick past lives i just think it's like a definitive modern romance right out of the gate immediately you walk into the theater with that kind of feeling it pays off in ways that are just honestly like really exhilarating yes and you're gonna walk out of the theater thinking about nora's life thinking about your life wanting to talk to people about it, wanting to think about this movie, and just wanting to kind of revel in what a miracle this is. What were the circumstances under which you saw it? Did you know the hype?

Did you have any details of the story? Were you just like, I know that smart people think this is good? Break it down. I knew a little bit of the hype. I had heard some of the before sunrise comparisons in the ether, which for me is a pretty serious allegation that you got to live up to. I walked into it solo at like a 10 p.m. weeknight screening. It was a packed house. Psycho behavior.

Love it. Absolute psycho behavior. But you know what? It was a room full of psychos. And we were all digging it and crying and experiencing it together. What was the breakdown of people on dates, people with friends, other psycho solo viewers? I mean, I'm going to guess it's mostly dates in that circumstance, but there are some psychos in there.

Okay. You know, there are definitely on my row, several other psychos I can report. Okay. How many people do you think in that screening met afterwards, solo people, and now are still together? Oh, wow. Do you think that this pod

is like a past life for one of our future pods? I wanted to get into that with you, honestly. I mean, we've been talking about the past lives of the many people who tried and failed

to pick this film as their favorite movie. And unfortunately, you stand in their way. You are the... Are you the John Magaro then, I think? I guess so.

In that equation? Hmm. I guess so. In that equation? I guess. Well, that seems unfair. Do you play a lot of PlayStation? You got to go straight for the heart. Look, I felt a little seen in that moment. Yeah, yeah. How would you handle that situation, Rob Mahoney?

I would like to think I would have the grace that Arthur does over the course of this movie. But you would go along. I wouldn't go. I wouldn't go on the bar, like the very signature scene that it opens with of the three of them at the bar together. We're kind of all wondering what they are to each other. Absolutely not. Would not attend that particular gathering. You and I are agreed on that. Well, I like that you identified as the Megara character because, you know, what if you're the Greta Lee character in this film?

You know, like, if I were the Greta Lee character, would I entertain Haesung? Would I accept this? Because there is, I think, an unexamined aspect of this story is the kind of creepiness of, hey, it's me. I'm in America now. Can we get together? Which is a little surprising 24 years later. Well, there's that moment when she comes in and finds her husband playing PlayStation. And he continues to play PlayStation as they have a conversation.

And she's like, you're right. He's definitely here for me. So, like, there's this unspoken, they both kind of suspect it. It's implied that they've had at least like one conversation about it, but she's kind of accepting it. But the knowledge also suggests that she's maybe not totally closed off to the idea of it. Okay. You know? Do you have a haesung in your life?

Is there a person that lingers from your past, Rob? I don't. And, you know, certainly Nora's story is much more layered and complicated given that it's like this love triangle on top of an immigrant story, on top of, I mean, honestly, you could go pretty deep in terms of analyzing like the narratives under narratives with this one. I can't say I haven't a Haesung in my life, but you never know. It's never too late to find your Haesung, I think. I revealed I have a quasi Haesung

when we talked about the film at length. Do you have a Haesung in your life? I don't. I don't have a childhood sweetheart. I have done or did like briefly do the long distance thing. So I could relate to that like kind of middle part of it. Yeah. Where it's the idea of the person

more than the actual person, which is another, to Rob's point, layer of this story and what you imagine romance or a partner to be and what you can create in your head versus the lived reality of every day. I think that portion of the movie, I've never seen anything like it in terms of really isolating that long distance romance in that exact pocket of time to the point that I really need to know who on the staff was responsible for the exact Skype lag that they recreate over the course of this movie because it's impeccable. And if you were there, you certainly know. I'm with you.

It's better than any MCU third act that I've seen this year from an effects perspective. As far as the discussion afterwards, if you saw this solo, what did you do? What recourse did you have? Because I was in a similar spot. I saw it very early at a screening and I was like, fuck. And now I'm alone with my thoughts on this film.

Now, thankfully, Amanda and I were able to talk at length about it. And then I got to talk to Celine about making it. But I assume you have any friends, Rob? Do you have some friends? I don't know. There's a couple in the mix. Has Woz seen Past Lives?

Great question. I actually need to hit him up about that. I can see him being into it. Like the first NBA free agency pod that you guys do. Just like, Woz, hold on. That'd be great. Hold on. I know Nikola Vucevic just got signed,

but we need to talk about past lives, please. You think Vuce has seen past lives? Absolutely not. I feel like he might be touched by it now that he has the stability for the back half of his career and three more years in Chicago. Well, show me the person who would not be touched by this film,

I think is part of its power. You know, like everyone has these fork in the road moments in their life. Everyone has, if not a haze song, like some version of that that they've entertained. I mean, it's so evocative for that reason. Maybe I'm mischaracterizing Vooch. like some past version of themselves that they're no longer in touch with that they feel you know in some way or another you know like a choice they made big or small or some other like future that could have been which this also taps into what an ending what how did you did you actually cry i did cry yeah that's beautiful how could you honestly not i mean there's sticking the landing and then there's whatever happens

over the back 15 minutes. I think to your point about it being exhilarated, I was like, oh my God, like this is happening right before me that I sort of like was vibrating instead of crying. But that's just because I was like, wow, they did it. They absolutely did it. We've just been-

They really did. We've just been chatting with your colleague, Charles Holmes, about his favorite film. And it led to a discussion about the new masculinity. And here you are discussing your emotional reaction to past lives. That is cool. This is a movie for very evolved men. Rob crying alone at midnight in a movie theater?

Responding to art? Cool. Okay. Crying because you got dumped at a basketball game as Michael B. Jordan did? Not cool. I see. Now they're clear on that, everyone. Listen, the cool men committee is always here for you, Sean.

Ask and you shall receive. You should create like a hotline. Like people can just call you. Rob, awards wise, do you think that this is the kind of movie that gets nominated for best picture? So I've heard some criticism. A little too small, a little too quiet, yada, yada. What do you think? I really hope so.

I really hope we can find space to reward movies like this. It is small, very tight cast, very like isolated story. But I think the degree to which they nail the kind of three-track nature of it, I think is incredibly impressive. Where, you know, Nora is kind of engaging with her feelings as they relate to like, am I feeling nostalgia for the place I grew up in? Am I feeling a sense of like longing for this relationship that I never quite got to have because of this long distance situation?

Am I feeling something real? And the fact that you can nail all those beats, the fact that you can have a cross-continental story, I don't know, is the range of human emotion small to you, Sean? It's quite vast, but I will say I'm not sure that the Ringer staff is a one-to-one

with the Academy voting body in terms of taste. Yeah, that's true. So even though seven or eight of us are desperate to claim this movie as our fave, I don't...

I'm curious. I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic, but I don't know. What about on the acting front? I mean, I think Greta Lee is probably going to get some buzz at some point, but there are three sensational performances in this movie, to be honest with you.

I agree. I think she has the best opportunity. You made a very strong pitch. I'm very hopeful. She will need a dynamite campaign because she's not very well known, but who better than A24 to kick off a campaign around a performance like this? I feel hopeful about the slow burn abilities of this film. And the fact that eight people on the ringer staff,

they don't all have to see this movie for work. And they all have varying tastes too. And it unites them. That's an awareness and a reach that I don't always see. We don't always see with a movie of this size. Yes. And we have many months to go. So let's be optimistic.

I'm willing to be. Rob, what was number two for you? What were we negotiating with? Was there another film that you were interested in? Across the Spider-Verse. So really a Greta Lee doubleheader. She's banging out on all fronts. This is why you're a pro podcaster. With that in mind, let's make a pivot to our next guest. Rob, thanks so much. Thank you, Rob.

Hey, appreciate the generosity, letting me have this moment, letting me... Really, you guys have been my Arthur today, and I appreciate that. Let the new masculinity reign forever, Rob. Thank you. There's a word in Korean, it means providence or fate. Do you believe in that? That's just something Koreans say to seduce someone. Okay. Our next guest is here for the first time ever on The Big Picture. It's the newest addition to The Ring of Earth, Jessica Clemons. What's up, Jessica? Hi, I'm very happy to be here.

Very excited, very nervous, but very excited. No reason to be nervous. You're amongst friends. So actually, your pick is a movie that me, you, and Amanda all saw in the same theater in the same row. Yes, the same, the day we met, actually, or the day that I met you, Jessica, the second film of a double header. What is it?

Tell us what it is. It's Spider-Man across the spider verse part one, not to be confused with part two. That's not coming out for another two years, but part one. I also wanted to ask, do you guys think we're, I love this movie.

I love this movie in general, but we did see it as a double feature. And the first movie we saw was The Flash. Yeah. Did that persuade us with, I mean, I genuinely, I will always love Across the Spider-Verse, but I was like,

oh, I love it 20 times more now. It's such a good question. We did talk about that when we talked about The Flash and how it was just bummer town and I got my spirits lifted after Spider-Verse, but I was so in the bag for the first Spider-Verse film that I feel like it didn't really meaningfully affect my take on it.

What do you think? No, I don't think long-term it affects your take. I think in the moment maybe you experienced a little more uplift because that's what you needed then, but no. They are an interesting double feature. One being very bad and about the multiverse and how to do that badly and then one being very bad and about the multiverse and how to do that badly and then one being very beautiful and good yes spider verse what did you respond to jessica in spider verse

i love i love like you i love the first one so much i think the spider verse movies do something for me that unfortunately like marvel and dc and a lot of sony properties can't and it's like reaching this multiverse level through animation, through great voice acting, through so many great mediums, even excelling in diversity that grabs my attention completely every time. A big part for me in films and why I'm in films, people listening, I'm a black woman, is diversity in media. And I think this movie did such a good job the first time around, but then the second time elevated it to a part

where I was like, this is universal. And I love this. And I love that I can speak to so many different people and also just do it in a beautiful, beautiful way. So that's what spoke to me. What expectation did you have for it? Because after the first film, I was like, well, nailed that.

They don't have to do that anymore. And then in the immediate aftermath of its success, they were like, yeah, we're making this don't have to do that anymore. And then in the immediate, in the immediate aftermath of its success, they were like, yeah, we're making this a trilogy. And I think one criticism that you hear of the movie, which I think is very fair, is that it's just a part one.

It's a cliffhanger. It doesn't resolve the story that it builds. So like, I assume you knew that going in, as well versed as you are in this, in this field. Did, did that make it easier to enjoy it?

Cause you knew what you were getting yourself into. I did know. I immediately was just like, oh, it's part one. So there will be a huge cliffhanger. I was aware that that was going to happen. But I think it didn't really affect me too much. All I really wanted was I knew we were involving so many different Spider-Men.

Even the first trailer that had 500 plus different Spider-Men in the Spider-Man Citadel. And I was like, okay, this is a lot of characters. How are we going to do this in under like two and a half hours? And that was my biggest nerve. I was like, we have so many people we're introducing and I don't know how they're going to do it. Cause we also want to leave the theater emotionally tied to each of them, or at least more than half. And I was like, you have like 12 new characters. How are we going to be emotionally tied to each one of them do you feel emotionally tied to 500 spider-men no okay well the interesting the interesting part is I got tied to like the the weird ones right so like when as soon as we

saw spider cat I was like oh my gosh I'm obsessed with this I'm very I whatever happens to that cat will directly affect me in the future. But, but I think it was more so like, I was like, I need to know why spider punk is going to be so important to me. And I got a lot of it in the movie where there's a great article that has been going around where they're talking about how quick spider bite and spider punk were to assist miles where Gwen and Peter B Parker were not.

And I was like, oh, this is two people that were genuinely like, we don't need to know that much information and we're here to support you in any way. And I was like, that speaks to me. So now I'm connected to these two characters that have together 12 lines. We didn't really talk about

when we talked about the movie that Daniel Kaluuya's voice acting performance, which is one of the best parts of the movie. Like you have a much more of an affinity for voice acting and animation than I think my co-host does. But we've maybe not nailed, like, what is a great voice acting performance.

And this one has a lot of distinct ones. Like, what do you, how do you define it? How do you think about it? Oh, that's such a good, I love this. I'm obsessed with this because I love voice acting, but it was, I think what they did really well in the direction was they chose, like they had the characters, but then they had the actors and the voice actors put so much input into building their characters that the characters kind of mimic the voice actors to a T. So we have Daniel Kaluuya that's from Camden

and they were like, you know what? Punk was really big in Camden in the seventies. Why don't we just actually have this character really tailored to Daniel Kaluuya? So it's Daniel Kaluuya, 70s punk rocker playing Spider Punk. And I think it was so important for that character to be Daniel Kaluuya because it came out so well. All of that chillness, all that coolness, even with Pavitra Prabhakar, I was like, this is a character that is so tied to the voice actor that they just ended up bleeding into each other. And it made it so seamless. A bad example of voice acting is go watch the CGI Lion King with Beyonce. Sure.

Yeah. That was tough. I hear you on that. It was. Yeah. I talk about it enough, so I don't mind people coming for me for this but it is really bad

Van just brought this up too when we were talking with him he was just like that maybe not that specifically that performance but part of the problem with that movie

is that the voice acting is not very strong it takes you out it does what you're saying is that in the spider-verse they have the ability to tailor the characters

to the actor and vice versa. Whereas Beyonce is playing Beyonce, playing Nala in the fourth Lion King. You know, it's just like so many iterations of things that there's no personality for anyone there. Do you think that the way that the story is concluded will change your opinion of the first film?

The second? You mean part two? How it's going to end completely? Well, that's a good question i don't know because when i went into the second one i was like the first one was so good that i was like if the second i don't think the second one's gonna be as good and it got better for me yeah me too so i'm a i think the third one is gonna do the same justice where i'm like oh this is one of my favorite trilogies where it just continuously gets better. And I think it might be better than the first one, but I don't think it still deters me

from being like, they're all my favorite. They're all very good. They're all 110% for me. But the third one might be better to me than the first one. Does that make you anxious at all? Or you just live in a place of positivity and you're just like things can be good I'm just trying to learn from you this is like I'm amazed because I would be anxious I don't I it's so interesting I think I just after the second one I don't I trust them too much and maybe that's

gonna be my that's gonna be my downfall I hope not is I I trust them so much they put in so much work and they did such a good job. They went above what I expected. So I was like, whatever they do in the third one is going to go way above my imagination, way above my pay grade. So I'm really interested in it. But I'm also saying like, this is for across the Spider-Verse, this Spider-Man trilogy in particular. If you give me another trilogy, I probably have notes and I probably won't have as much faith. But this one, I just have too much faith in. They keep stunning me. They keep shaking me. Where are you at on the Craven the Hunter trilogy? I don't want to talk about it. I said, I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about that. What was your number two?

What was the second movie you were going to pick? Easy, Bo is Afraid. I love Ari Aster. I love Ari Aster so much. I actually listened to your guys' podcast when you guys went over Bo is Afraid. And it was such great points. But it was so beautiful. And again, I just like visual storytelling so much.

And this was something straight from, it felt like a visual from a book. And especially when they're going through the scenario, when they're doing the live theater, I stopped breathing. I stopped moving at it. It was so beautiful. The narrations were great. I love the different type of interpretation it has.

I love that he made it off of like a little short film. It was so good to me. And I ate it up and I watched it twice in theaters. I love it. You're one of the only people I know who has seen it twice in theaters. I respect that. But I know many people who have seen it

and even admired it, but did not want to watch it again. I might be talking about myself. We'll talk more about that soon. I wanted to take my friend to go see it. And then it was one of those situations where I was like, I need you to see this.

I need you to see this. Let's go watch it again together so I can watch your reactions to it. And what were they? He loved it. But I think he loved it. I liked it for this reason too. I think Patti LuPone,

spoilers, really stole the show from that reveal. And I think that's what his sway was. Different than mine. I was like, what about the art? And he was like, I like the cameos so interesting two different two different appear

uh two different directions I guess we're kind of twinned on these because Bo is Afraid is a big one for me and Spider-Verse probably my favorite movie of the year so we're letting you have this but Jessica welcome you're now in the big picture Club. Thanks for doing this. Oh, of course. Anytime. Thank you. Easy. And Miguel. The whole thing was his idea. And who's Miguel? He's like a ninja vampire Spider-Man, but a good guy. A vampire good guy.

Okay, it's time. It's time for the three of us, Bobby Wagner in studio, Amanda and myself, to make our picks for our favorite movies of the year. A little caveat here. Many of our favorite movies have already been selected by our colleagues. And so much like last year

when I did this with a bunch of people, I think I ended up picking one or two movies that maybe weren't at the tippy top of my list, but were near the tippy top. So I'll go first. Okay. My quote unquote favorite movie of the year so far is Boa's Afraid, which is Ari Aster's magical, much maligned object of controversy about Freudian despair and the destruction of our cityscapes and the loss of masculinity in the modern world and Nathan Lane being the man, among many other things.

I'm so interested in this movie internally and externally, like what it is as a movie and what the experience is like, this three-hour literal odyssey across time and space and also how it went into the culture and then went out of the culture and there was a big month there where i was like this is the only movie that exists and then i don't know that many people that saw it so it was big 35 million dollar 824 production very um tightly focused in the worlds of film criticism ari of course you know one of the great young filmmakers in the world right now has been lauded by the likes of martin scorsese made his name on

horror movies. This movie is kind of a horror movie, but more of a psychological freakout, I would say. You know, when we talked about the movie on the show, it was with Adam Neiman, and so Amanda, you and I have not discussed. That's true, but I have seen it. So what are your thoughts on Bo, I was afraid? I texted you after I saw it, and I think the gist was that i can't say i enjoyed it or i enjoyed all of it okay i did enjoy parts of it and i really admired it in the end which is a surprising which was surprising for me because this was the other thing was the giant puppeteered

penis that you most enjoyed what did you most enjoy enjoy? That was funny. Okay. Is that a spoiler? It does arrive in the third act. You already spoiled Mariah Carey. So when you tweeted that photo, I mean, I guess they spoiled it because Ari Aster and Mariah Carey posed together at the premiere. There is a Mariah Carey needle drop

near the end of the film that is a majesty. And that was transcendent. Parker Posey was incredibly funny. I surprised myself by liking that second act sort of animated artistic fantasia, basically, even though it is probably the most indulgent. Well, I don't know. It's hard to pick a most indulgent part of the movie, but I think that's also the point. It is the most audacious part, I think. Yeah. There were parts where I was like, oh, this is really interesting.

I always think Joaquin Phoenix is good, even though he's incredibly off-putting on purpose in this. I just liked it as commitment to a project, like the project of Ari Aster. And I found it like the most fascinating in terms of trying to figure out what he is saying both about his own filmmaking project and like about his life. And I think he's been rightfully circumspect about the personal inspirations.

At the same time, it's clear that all three of his movies are like deeply personal. There are some themes that are consistent that he manages to communicate and like you so you know something else is going on and how he is processing whether it's you know the fact of having a family like losing family members trying to like grief loss being a person in the world it's very moving to me even if i'm like i this is weird like this is all very weird which it also is yeah it's i'm i'm happy to hear you say that because the ideas i think are things that interest you and his execution is with a high level of simultaneously like art house stylization european cinema influence and also

like american genre movies. And kind of smashing those two things together, that's what's made him such a unique voice in the movie landscape. I think that this feels like the end of a chapter for him. And I'm glad that the end of a chapter was this convulsive, outsized experience. And his next movie, again, with Joaquin Phoenix will be what has been tipped as a Western noir, which is again, right in my bag. So thank you to Ari for serving me directly on each film. Bob, did you see Ari's latest film? I did. Never has a movie, at least in the theater, made me want to just like shrink into my chair and disappear at the end of it more than this movie did. Especially that final scene

where you're just like staring out, you're on the boat and you're staring out into the crowd. I was like, I need to get out of here as soon as possible. I need to walk out of the theater. And I think that that's a testament to how intentional the filmmaking is

and how uncomfortable he wants you to be while watching the movie. And obviously that's not for everybody, as we saw in the discourse and on Twitter and at the box office, I suppose. But I thought it was for me. I liked it. I don't know how often I will want to return to it,

but everything about it impressed me in its own way, even if I don't consider it to be my kind of movie. That Odyssey-level like freak out psychedelic is not always what I gravitate towards, but it feels like a lot of like different ideas thrown onto the page and I appreciate the audacity and the imperfection because I'm someone who doesn't always love like the most carefully

curated and crafted experience if it doesn't need to be that way. I think one of the things that recommends a second viewing is that especially in the first hour of the movie, there are so many small jokes in that cityscape that he creates, that kind of ridiculous Jacques Tati on, you know, LSD moment in that film that just to like just pause the frame and see how he built the entire world is really cool. People may not necessarily want to revisit the experience of feeling how afraid Bo was, but I like that movie a lot.

It does seem like something that you could revisit, though, in pieces or in scenes. Episodic. Yeah, it adds up to something, but it certainly is episodic. I also just, to Bobby's point about the discourse, I just love it when anyone is like, I don't care about my devoted fans at all, and I'm just going to throw this right in your face. And this didn't strike me as an aggressive fuck you, but it was like,

there is a whole genre of A24 heads who Hereditary is their favorite of his films, and they were seeing it through a pure horror lens. And I just thought it was really funny when they didn't get it, you know, and they didn't get the rest of the project. They didn't get it. They got horror of a kind. Sure. But that's funny.

Okay. Amanda, what is your favorite movie of 2023? I'm going with Asteroid City, which I sort of stole from Bobby, so we can do this together. You know, Bobby, you were just saying you don't love carefully curated, specific representations. That's not what I mean. No, I know. And I understood what you meant in that moment. And I was also like, it's really funny that you and I both loved Asteroid City so much.

Asteroid City is, of course, Wes Anderson's latest film starring Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks literally everyone else under the sun and we devoted a whole episode to it with Adam Neiman and Sean I believe we ranked it fourth overall in the Wes Anderson movies with room to climb, but I just have been thinking about this movie so much. Another, to me, incredibly personal movie expressed with a similar level of precision, but obviously like completely different style, completely, maybe not different emotions because Asteroid City is also about a loss among many other things and also about allusions to the history of cinema and, you know, and bright colors. But the process of understanding those emotions is, you know, is very different and so specific to the filmmaker while still being like really accessible to me also it's just very rewarding because as we discussed on the Wes Anderson episode I have been following Wes Anderson for as long as I've been watching movies and so when a filmmaker does

one of these sort of like state of the career movies which come every 10 years in which this really this really does feel like his most significant film since Grand Budapest Hotel it is and the end when they get it right it's really rewarding as a viewer as well so I was really moved by it I felt like in a lot of ways I was watching his career evolve as like my own like emotions evolved as well you know it's kind of like how you mark your life a bit. So I loved it. Bobby, what about you? I, well, first of all, like visually, it's tremendous.

A lovely experience to just go and watch these like watercolors be painted in real time and to have the, like the aesthetically pleasing feeling of just staring right at a screen

that's staring right back at you. I thought that what really appealed to me about it was, I mean, the performances are fantastic. And that is like one of Wes Anderson's superpowers is just like he calls everybody in the Rolodex and they're like, sure, I'll come out for a few days and be this bit part, even though I'm really a star. Um, but I thought that what I loved about it was that even though it was set in this sort of like nuclear era, like the explosion of the nuclear bomb in the background, just rattling a diner and them turning to each other and saying, oh, what was that? Oh, must be nuclear testing. Like while so many other movies and so many other of our like modern auteurs are interested in, and this is going to sound like a shot at Oppenheimer, it's not because I'm excited for Oppenheimer, but are interested in the scale

and the totemic nature of things. I think West just continues to double down on the interpersonal and the small and the Russian nesting doll nature of the film kind of just reiterates that in format and in theme. So I really enjoyed it when I watched it. It took me a while to kind of like process what I liked a lot about it. Like I wasn't ready to just chat it up with my friends who I went and saw this movie with in the way that I was for something like Past Lives. But the more that I think about it, the more that I think it's like, I'm really glad that we got this. I'm really glad that he decided to make a film at this scale with this many stars and try to make it a big event, which I think it has become a little bit to people who care about this kind of movie scene. I've been

really excited to see how well received this movie has been, how well it did at the box office. And it's on a wide opening weekend. How many people are saying what you're saying, Amanda, which is like, this feels like a summation in some ways of this era of his filmmaking. I really need to see it again. I still haven't seen it for a second time. And I felt, I felt, I mentioned this when we discussed it, I felt slightly off-put by the fourth layer of the nesting doll. You know, I was like, it was, it felt a bit to me like a hat on a hat, which I know is sort of the point and what he was sort of commenting on. And I know that it's

very self-referential, but I think with maybe another viewing or a couple of viewings, even I'll maybe better understand what he was trying to do. I think I felt pretty clearly what he was trying to say, which is as these massive moments are happening in the world at large and the way that we were trying to tell stories is a complicated way of refracting them. It's really about the very small moments in your life. If you are a husband and a father and your wife dies, that is really the only thing that matters. And then how you process that information,

like obviously the Schwarzman and Scar Jo performances and relationship in that film is kind of like the cruciform key, you might say to understanding how the film works uh so i i love it too those are great picks for you guys so bobby and what's in your what's in second place for you yeah um i chose i chose how to blow up a pipeline which is a movie that when i first saw it i um i appreciated it and i was like excited about what it was trying like like the themes of it because you don't see movies very often that are this like nakedly present and political and with that

strong of a point of view which I think is a really big challenge um for filmmakers and for writers but then watching it I felt like it was current but not preachy which is a hard thing to be nowadays and you know it's it's a it's a film for like a small subsect of people who care about these sorts of things like this environmental activism and the ways in which you express that politically but it also just works as a thriller so even if you don't align yourself with this film or even if you're not like vehemently opposed to this film, you can go and you can watch the events unfold and be entertained in that way. Like from the second the movie starts,

it's not playing around. It's not trying to establish, you know, like the political theory of itself. It's just grabbing you by the chest and pulling you through it. And the score for it is so phenomenal. So if you see it in the theater, you can kind of feel the hair on everyone else's arms raising. Also, it debuted a lot of new actors for me, which I think is a hard thing to do for a film that you're trying to put

in theaters. And because of that, it made the sort of suspense thriller, young activist, it's not about us, it's about this movement nature of the theme of the film. It made it that much more believable because I didn't have any kind of prior representation with any of these actors. I believed that they could, well, you know, some of them I had seen before on screen,

but no big reputation with them. It made it more believable that they could just be kind of this gang of people in the desert trying to figure out how to, you know, build a bomb and blow up a pipeline. So how many pipelines have you blown up since you've seen the film? Don't answer that. It does not actually, yeah, I'm not going to comment on that while things are being recorded. Okay. You know, there's not actually a how-to, which I probably at this point in my engineering life would need, but you know, there's always room to grow.

We never held a science corner for How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Interesting. Believe it or not. It was kind of one big science corner when you think about the film. We're not playing the music. We're not doing that science corner. The thing about this movie is that it plays. You know, it just, as they say in many of my favorite thrillers, it plays.

And it was just, I wanted to know what happened i also do admire this is uh adapted from a non-fiction book that is not like a it's not a novel yeah and it's also not a manual exactly you know it's it's a philosophical text right right but it it is hard to adapt things um and many people do it badly all of the time. And I respect the idea and the synthesis of what was going on in the book, but the imagination to turn it into a narrative. So great job. The other thing is that the film feels really close and anxious and claustrophobic and dusty.

The way that it looks is you feel like you're in that desert, and you're dirty, and you're worried that the bomb's going to blow up on you. And so I just think that it is like a nice synthesis of idea, plot, and then all of the external factors of the music, and the way that the film looks, and the performances, and the sweatiness of it. It all just kind of came together for me personally. Yeah, it's goofy to describe it as leftist Ocean's Eleven, but it is.

I mean, the way that it toggles back and forth in time. It's Dusty Soderbergh also. Yeah, exactly. The handheld camera movement and the closeness on every character. And the flashbacks worked really well too, I thought. And it wended in kind of a lot of the different community coalition building that is at the center of these movements without kind of hitting you over the head with that. This is not a lot of the different like community coalition building that is at the center of these movements without kind of hitting you over the head with that i this is not a criticism of the

film it's something i often think about uh as a former massive consumer of leftist ideology and in media um former well i just i'm just not reading the nation every week like i used to but you stopped listening to chapo i did did actually, but that has nothing to do with anything else. I wonder if it's just preaching to the choir. I wonder if this is a movie that basically only reaches

the people who are already sympathetic to the cause. That's not the movie's fault. It's not really even its problem necessarily because it's meant to be an entertainment as much as it is a kind of point of view.

But when you call your movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline, you're going to turn off a certain sector of the audience and so what does the film have a role to convince because there is a lot of there's a lot of art especially a lot of film sure 60s 70s counterculture you know early 2000s like the rise of a kind of independent filmmaking point of view that showed different lifestyles that showed different political thought, that compelled and convinced, but was not as openly abrasive,

like in the way that Bobby was describing, where it was sort of like, this is in your face. Like, this is what this is about. This is about a group of young people who are going to destroy this because of the way that they think politically. I take your point, but I think what this film does,

while also being aggressive in its narrative structure and in what happens in the movie, it is refreshingly not annoying in the sort of pull quote ideology. why they're doing it. And there are a lot of stakes and there is, you know, a youthful energy and radicalism to, to what they're doing that, you know, as we said, when we were doling out the rest of these movies, I was like, Bobby should pick this one. He's just a lot younger than me.

You know, that's easier to sell. But they don't have the, it doesn't have the thing that I, I find a lot of quote-unquote um purpose-driven entertainment has right now which is just like here now here is my speech yeah and here is why i am right and why you need to feel this way and why this is like the it just it isn't um didactic in in the way that i worry what you're proposing could turn out so i i like this

execution it's refreshing and sort of like the has like pulls the right things from the 70s movies to me there's a clarity of purpose to to the way that they talk about the action and there's like a sort of frank righteousness to what they are doing that i think it makes it so that even if you are to the left and you don't you maybe don't think that sabotage is the way to affect change you can understand why these young people specifically think that and and that that flashback structure that I was talking about does a lot to clarify that part of the reason why this is a great addition to the list is because it does what so many of these movies on the list do which is that they're fun to talk about yeah movies are better when you want to they're not just turn off your brain entertainments they provoke and you can

be provoked by comic book stories and you can be provoked by you know action-oriented leftist uh sabotage dramas but it's all it's all part of a piece. Not such a bad year after all. No, it's been great, except for when we had to go... Your voice broke so hard. It's been great. It's been great. I'm excited about the summer. I'm excited about the rest of the year. I love talking about movies with all of you. Do you know what's coming next on the show? Oh, God, it's an auction, right? We have a movie auction. We have our second movie auction of the year.

And so all these movies that we're so excited for will be on the auctioning block. Since we're all in person for that, are there any like in-person elements to the auction? Should I bring a gavel? I think that would be good. That would be really funny. I think that would be fun.

Okay. I'll have like a little timer and a gavel. I was more like, can we make Chris do push-ups somehow? Oh, true. You know, as part of his ongoing... But as like a penalty for failing to acquire a film. What about every push-up that Chris can do consecutively, he gets an extra $10?

Yeah. I'm not introducing cash into this. But you mean auctioning dollars? In the auction dollars, yeah. I do like the idea of paying Chris money to get ripped. There is something there, I think, that we can develop. Let's think on it. One other thing I would like to include when we record is just there I think that we can develop. Let's think on it. One other thing

I would like to include when we record is just a lot of candy on the table. What do you think about that? That's great because what people really want

is to hear you with a mouth full of Sour Patch Kids. Yeah, they do want to hear that. You know, just like stuck in one job. If they want me to get out of my bad attitude era,

I need to get more Sour Patch Kids in my life. Oh, is that some of the feedback you've been getting? I'm in my bad attitude era. Well, from you and Chris. You definitely were. I thought it was just because you were like a little sick

during the Indiana Jones thing and you like didn't have enough herbal tea or whatever. That's been an issue. We're working on that here at Big Pick Industries. Thank you for listening to this episode. Thanks to Bob who's sitting right next to me. To my right for producing this episode. And we will see you in a few days

where we will be auctioning. Bye.